More markets…more food

Today my explorations took me to two very different markets…Insadong and Namdaemun. The former is a section of street that is closed to traffic on Sundays. It's filled with shops selling paper, pottery, brass and Korean, Chinese and Japanese art. There are also food vendors lining the streets. Shortly before arriving in Korea I heard a snippet of an interview with Ming Tsai where he extolled the virtues of street food. His basic thrust was "It's all cooked to 200 degrees and that kills everything, so go ahead." I took him up on his offer…at least part of it. One of the things that you can buy on these carts is ppeondaegi…silkworm larvae. They smell like cooked bugs (go figure) and I was in no hurry to try them. Instead I first sampled some bungeo pang, egg batter with a sweet bean paste inside. Very tasty. Next it was on to hoteok, sort of like a donut with a brown sugar center. Very good as well…and only 500 KRW (about $0.50). After browsing the shops for a while I took the subway over to Namdaemun, a completely different experience.

Namdaemun means "south gate" and, sure enough, right next to a packed marketplace sits an ancient gate to the city of Seoul. The market itself is made up of dozens of streets and alleyways that are lined with vendors selling food, spices, tea, chocolate, leather goods, backpacks, purses, pants, shirts, sweaters, underwear, toys, shoes, socks, paper, jewelry, gloves, hats, ginseng, camping equipment, and much more. I picked up some chocolate and candy coated sesame seeds (sort of like peanut m&m's, but with a sesame seed and much smaller. It was starting to get dark and I was getting hungry as I wandered down "restaurant alley" where they have mock-ups of all their dishes out front. One ajumma tried to sell me on pig back soup. Although I've heard it's delicious I wasn't in the mood for meat, so I opted from bibimbap again. This wasn't as good as that I've had before, although it was the first meal here I had that's been served in the traditional stainless steel bowl. The kim chee was mediocre as well. But for about $4 you can't go wrong.




As I was wandering Namdaemun I saw this sign, which I first read as "Dream in porcupine love for baby." Popince is apparently a store or clothing line. I'm still not sure I completely understand it…but my version is funnier.